Friday, September 30, 2005

Dear Former Employer

I WILL send this tomorrow careers@majestic.co.uk


Dear Majestic Wine Warehouses,

Since working for a fortnight as a delivery driver for Majestic over eight years ago, I have kept myself informed regarding the progress of your company. I have been very impressed with the dynamic growth within the wine retail sector providing much needed competition to the previous Oddbins and Thresher duopoly. I am now a successful investment banker educated to post-graduate degree level and would like to offer some free advice to your company.

I feel that Majestic's business model can contribute for the study of contemporary business studies as it represents an empirical example that goes against the well established PPP (Products Price and People) theory for a successful enterprise. Given that your business has the quality product at competitive prices yet is staffed by complete nincompoops, this is an example of a successful business model depending upon just PP rather than PPP.

Coming into work at your Battersea and Clapham branches at the age of 19 I was shocked by what a miserable bunch of charsima-less losers you consistently employed across all the branches, all seemed to really take exception to my carefree youthful exuberance and go out of there way not to talk to me. I believe that these were called your 'graduate management trainees'.

I have reviewed your graduate recruitment website and come up with the following observations/recommendations;

- University is no longer the bastion of academic excellence as it was in previous decades, any idiot can go to university these days, indeed your assistant managers are testament to this fact. Why not employ any old idiot that did not go to university thus removing the bitterness of your graduate trainees when it sinks in that they went to university only to end up as a glorified shop assistant?

- You say in your advert that the hours are long, the work physical and you need to be prepared to shift boxes, build displays and make deliveries. You then have the cheek to call this a 'great opportunity'. Please explain how this is in fact a 'great opportunity'?

- Caroline Fox says 'Being the Manager of a large store doesn't stop me from getting my hands dirty - there is always merchandising to be done and deliveries to unload ' That is ALL these managers ever seemed to do, as such is it fair to delude them with the title Assistant Manager? Remember wise old man from Wearside once said 'YOU CAN'T POLISH A TURD'. In my professional experience honesty is the best policy , I will be referring your graduate recruitment website to the Trading Standards Office.

Finally I would like to inform you how I gained job satisfaction during my two weeks at Majestic, maybe it can be used as a template for keepin staff content;

-Stealing Pringles, Pistachios and Kettle Chips before leaving the shop and waving my loot in celebration behind the backs of all my miserable colleagues.
-Making obscene hand gestures to the delusional, glorified shop assistant, stupid manager who had ideas well above her station and looked like Jo Brand.
-Spending two hours in Safeway car park, Streatham reading the newspaper then coming back into the shop complaining about the 'bloody traffic'.
-Driving the indiscreet Majestic van round London (particularly Kensington and Chelsea) shouting obscenities at other motorists and pedestrians.
-Using my 25 per cent staff discount for two years after my 14 day stint as a delivery driver!

Alas if you would like any further business advice from myself it will no longer be free, the price is £100/hr which is progression from the £4.20 you used to pay me that with no consideration paid regarding food and transport during the 10 hour day/6 day week.

Kind Regards

Matt

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Mush - Portrait of a Musical Ignoramus

In Recent years I have undergone a bit of an enlightenment, attended a concert or two, been to V festival, borrowed my brothers CDs that I had previously written off as smelly indie kid bollocks. Embarrassingly I am a musical ignoramus, I discovered the Stone Roses after the year 2000, and it was my two Brazilian record producer housemates that informed me that Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin are from England and not California.

Influenced by the film 24 Hour Party People, musicians Will & Leo from Mr Mouse recording studio and other music lovers like Peanut and my youngest sibling Danny, I have been enlightened. I'm still a good year or two behind the latest bands and rather than the pretentious oft heard claim 'I liked them before they were famous when nobody had heard of them' with me its a case of 'I liked them after everybody else did'.

Music fans will wonder what I actually did during my adolescence to be so oblivious to the great music scene going on around me in the 1990s. The indy rock and roll kids were bopping away in venues like Sheffield's Leadmill, the almost hallucinogenic cider they had drunk leading them to believe that the band they were watching will be bigger than the Beatles. I was to be found on the dance floors of places such as Roxy Disco, Kikis, Isabella's, or Capitol begrudgingly tapping my foot to Bobby Brown's 'two can play that game' (still HATE that song) whilst on an unsuccessful quest to achieve the Holy Grail for a sixteen year old, the infamous DFP.

In defence of my choice of places to frequent in my teenage days, I feel a recent Guardian article partially vindicated my decision. Reviewing controversial Indie film 9 Songs the critic observed that 'The only people that get less sex than indie boys are high ranking Opus Dei members and heavy metal fans'. Remembering my indie boy mates' levels of success with the opposite sex back in the day I see where he is coming from!

5 Tell Tale Signs that you have a CRAP job

1) Your highlight of the day is the 10-30 mins you spend on the throne.*

2) The most intelligent daily conversation you get is out of the canteen cashier who can't speak English properly anyway.

3) You know the symptoms for numerous illnesses you have never had and probably never will have, and they all go through your mind every morning when the alarm clock goes off.

4) You look at the Window Cleaners with envy.

5) Tracey, Sharon, Gary and Trevor are the most frequent names of your colleagues.

Bonus) Your employer was formerly known as Midland Bank

*1-2 hours on a Friday with the alcoplops after you've been on the DiahaBeer on Thursday night